Bills fire OL Coach Juan Castillo

[MrEpsYtown]

21 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

Fair.

 

OK so while I got your and Bandit's attention.  At the beginning of that play, there's obviously some kind of signal just before the snap.

Zay goes in motion crossing L to R, taking his man with him.  Allen raises both hands to his helmet. elbows sticking out, and looks at DiMarco.  DiMarco turns to look at Shady and makes the same gesture.  Best guess what that is signal for?

 

 

Well, Josh got some "immediate feedback" from the Phins for his decision

 

Hapless I think that was just crap audible by our young quarterback. He put himself in that position in my opinion. I think he is clearly changing the play, but he didn't account for Baker. All the lineman are supposed to block the gap to their left, and DiMarco is supposed to come from the other side on the split zone, chip 90 Charles Harris and check down into the flat. That guy is usually wide open. 

 

Allen should have simply ran the split zone left,  Shady would have cut it back and it would have been a massive gash becuase there is no linebacker support there for the cut back. 

 

I put this one on our young quarterback. 

Edited January 3, 2019 by MrEpsYtown

[LSHMEAB]

22 minutes ago, MrEpsYtown said:

 

Hapless I think that was just crap audible by our young quarterback. He put himself in that position in my opinion. I think he is clearly changing the play, but he didn't account for Baker. All the lineman are supposed to block the gap to their left, and DiMarco is supposed to come from the other side on the split zone, chip 90 Charles Harris and check down into the flat. That guy is usually wide open. 

 

Allen should have simply ran the split zone left,  Shady would have cut it back and it would have been a massive gash becuase there is no linebacker support there for the cut back. 

 

I put this one on our young quarterback. 

I remember Beuerlein commenting that Allen called an audible on that particular play. 

[BillsFan4]

The airing of grievances.... (for all the Seinfeld fans)

 

Quote

We lost Richie, we lost Eric, we lost Seantrel, we lost Cordy,” Castillo said. “I mean, you go right down the line, we lost (several) guys that really were not replaced, except they added (guard) Wyatt (Teller), a fifth-rounder. And he ended up playing and played well there at the end. Really, he was a kid that was a defensive player that had to be developed. (Otherwise) he would have went earlier. And I think he did get developed.”

 

Quote

 

“The thing about it, to me, to begin with, a lot of people didn't think he could play left tackle," Castillo said, referring to the view of Dawkins when the Bills drafted him in the second round out of Temple. “So here's a kid that you're saying he regressed. He didn't play like a Pro Bowler, but he played like a solid left tackle. He doesn't get beat very much at pass pro. So did he regress? No.

 

Quote

 

“How many games did Dion have like that? He didn't have games like that,” Castillo said. “You know, the young kid (quarterback Josh Allen) holds the ball, too. He goes three or four hitches back there. (Dawkins) got beat every once in awhile. Most guys get beat, especially a second-year guy. Go back and read up on Dion. How many people thought he could play left tackle? And now, all of a sudden, you want him to be a Pro Bowler the second year? I don't think so.

 

 

[Bangarang]

He sounds salty as hell

[Aussie Joe]

I’m loving this...

 

It’s hard to argue with some of his comments...

 

Im not regretting then moving on from him but I’m a believer with the buck stopping at the top..

 

More assets could have been deployed last year to upgrade the line..

 

 

 

 

[Coach Tuesday]

Zero self-accountability based on that interview.  I can only imagine the sass he gave Daboll on a weekly basis.  Good firing, good riddance.

[Gugny]

I'm hurt that this took so long.

 

At least we now know that it was all Beane's and Allen's fault.  

 

Regardless, none of it was Castillo's fault ..... said no Juan, ever.

[JM57]

5 hours ago, BillsFan4 said:

The airing of grievances.... (for all the Seinfeld fans)

 

 

 

 

LOL he sounds like the posters in this thread. "BUT I LOST GUYS"

[billsintaiwan]

That article almost made me feel sorry for him. Almost.

[GG]

7 hours ago, BillsFan4 said:

The airing of grievances.... (for all the Seinfeld fans)

 

 

Typical for Castillo's scheme's, he's a week too late for the realization.  For someone claiming not to be bitter, he surely came off like a soured lemon

[GG]

16 hours ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

C'mon man.  There is always more than one way to skin a muskrat.

 

I only commented because you used Paradis as the specific example.  Reality is that he was not truly available last year, and Beane's version of the other way to skin that rodent was Bodine.

 

Out of the available list here, who was a better realistic option than Bodine?

16 hours ago, ScottLaw said:

I believe he started the 2012 season on the bench. 

 

Even still thats 8 games missed over 5 years prior to 2017 . It's football. Injuries are going to happen. 

 

If you're the GM, do you look at 8 games missed in his first 5 seasons or 18 games missed in his most recent 3 seasons?

[MrEpsYtown]

8 hours ago, BillsFan4 said:

The airing of grievances.... (for all the Seinfeld fans)

 

 

 

 

 

That's some really open and honest stuff. Wow, he even kind of calls out Riley Reiff. I thought his comments on Dion Dawkins are actually on point though. I actually think Dawkins has been pretty solid. Watch other teams' left tackles...Dawkins is not a guard. 

[GG]

3 minutes ago, ScottLaw said:

He had a nagging foot injury that required surgery.

 

He played in 13 of 16 games this past year.

 

If I am GM I don't rush to trade a top tier LT when healthy. I would've rather traded a future unknown draft pick than an established very good NFL tackle on a team with several offensive line holes. But that's just me.? 

 

These guys felt they needed to rebuild pretty much the entire roster. Even riding themselves of good NFL players. They still haven't done a sufficient job replacing those players. 

 

 

 

The rebuild strategy is getting much clearer now two seasons in.  They were looking at the roster composition in 2019, and put a premium on players who can best fit the culture, scheme and long term budget.  The players they got rid of were talented, but clearly didn't fit the long term plans, and they certainly don't look too promising for their new teams' futures.  The players that formed that core could still barely eke out a 7-9 season. 

 

McBeane also have the best seat in the house to assess the players' health, and so far, they've been right in their prognosis of Glenn, Dareus & Watkins. 

 

You and other critics expect them to replace the departed players in one season, which is laughable.   McBeane have had their share of misses on offense, and with Pegula's blessing are willing to pay high contracts in the short term to rebuild the roster.  The rebuild will continue this year, and there's very little argument that this is the first time in over 20 years that there appears to be a cohesive plan for the rebuild.   They finally tore off the old model of building a team and waiting for the QB to fall into their lap.   

 

 

 

 

[Hapless Bills Fan]

8 hours ago, BillsFan4 said:

 

This guy is delusional.

 

“And you've got a whole new offense, and a complicated offense, not an easy offense," [might be true] Castillo said of the Bills' attack under coordinator Brian Daboll. "And here's the kicker: (He's a solid tackle) not on a team that's running the ball. This is on a team that was averaging, what? Forty throws a game or something? People are not playing us for the run. They're rushing. So did he regress? I don't think so. That kid's going to be a Pro Bowl player, but you can't be a Pro Bowl player your second year.” 

 

It's a matter of record that the Bills were #6 in the NFL in rush attempts, and #28 in pass attempts.

It's also a matter of record that since Allen returned to the lineup, the Bills have averaged 30 pass attempts per game.  We threw >40 times once - against the Pats.

 

Now the Bills aren't a team that's running the ball well - but where does the buck stop for that, Juan Castillo?  We're trying to run the ball -since the bye, averaging 31 rush attempts per game.  Now I grant, a number of those rush attempts belong to the QB, but if you take out JA's rush attempts on the season, we slot into 25th (without correcting other rush attempts for QB), which since we're 28th on pass attempts, still means we're a bit rush heavy.

 

There's not any perception there, this is all just facts.  This guy thinks we're passing 10x per game more than we are, and thinks we're not trying to run the ball, when actually for an NFL offense on average we're a little bit rush-heavy.

 

And there's this: “You know, the young kid (quarterback Josh Allen) holds the ball, too. He goes three or four hitches back there." Sometimes Allen did hold the ball, sometimes he flushed out and ran too soon, often he threw before the play had fully developed because, pressure. 

 

Now I grant that he had a huge point about player personnel.  But he doesn't mention signing Bodine, who started at center most of the year.  And the time to bang the desk and say "look, my OL talent is as shallow as a kiddie pool, you have got to get me more to work with unless you want your shiny new rookie to get flattened like a toon (from Roger Rabbit)" is last Spring, before FA - preferably along with some lobbying about who in FA he wanted.  If he didn't have a relationship with McDermott that would let him say that, or the ability to make his case, after coaching with the guy 11 years, he's frankly not the right guy for the job.

 

If he's saying all that to Carucci, I can only imagine what he said and how he came across to Daboll.  It's everyone's fault but Castillos - the rookie QB, the playbook, the playcalling, the GM. 

 

Daboll is accustomed to coaching with a team that's starting an UDFA at center along with a 7th, 3rd, 4th and 5th round pick.  Which may, actually, account for why the Bills thought what they'd done on OL was enough.  That's where communication is key: "I know on the professional team you're most familiar with, the OL has been effective with late-round guys, but the QB is the Master at reading the D and getting the ball out quickly.  I don't care who the rookie QB is gonna be, he's gonna need more time to read the field and that means I need more talent."  But if this guy can't even track his own team's R/P stats,

 

"He was drawn to the youthful enthusiasm of first-time head coach Sean McDermott, with whom he had worked with the Philadelphia Eagles from 1999 to 2010. "  Translation: I thought I was McDermott's BFF and I didn't have to build a relationship with the OC or satisfy him as my boss.

 

Bye Felicia.

[GG]

8 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

This guy is delusional.

...

 

If he's saying all that to Carucci, I can only imagine what he said and how he came across to Daboll.  It's everyone's fault but Castillos - the rookie QB, the playbook, the playcalling, the GM.  "He was drawn to the youthful enthusiasm of first-time head coach Sean McDermott, with whom he had worked with the Philadelphia Eagles from 1999 to 2010. "  Translation: I thought I was McDermott's BFF and I didn't have to build a relationship with the OC or satisfy him as my boss.

 

Bye Felicia.

 

That's basically how he came across.   

 

Piecing together bits of stories about Castillo is that he probably is a very good teacher of technique who can develop players, but is an awful coach to put in an effective blocking scheme for the line that works with the OC's design.   In a perfect world, he'd be demoted to Asst OL coach who works with players individually, and stays away from game designs.

[TheBeaneBandit]

17 minutes ago, GG said:

 

That's basically how he came across.   

 

Piecing together bits of stories about Castillo is that he probably is a very good teacher of technique who can develop players, but is an awful coach to put in an effective blocking scheme for the line that works with the OC's design.   In a perfect world, he'd be demoted to Asst OL coach who works with players individually, and stays away from game designs.

Couldn't agree more and thats pretty much exactly what I thought of him.

[Hapless Bills Fan]

56 minutes ago, GG said:

 

I only commented because you used Paradis as the specific example.  Reality is that he was not truly available last year, and Beane's version of the other way to skin that rodent was Bodine.

 

Out of the available list here, who was a better realistic option than Bodine?

 

If you're the GM, do you look at 8 games missed in his first 5 seasons or 18 games missed in his most recent 3 seasons?

 

I had two specific examples, including the salary the other example signed for: Pouncey, who started 16 games effectively for the playoff-bound LAC this year.

Paradis was also potentially available, albeit at a cost of a high pick and "make it worth my while".  As far as the rest of that list, both Richburg and Jensen are better centers than Bodine.  Richburg is scary because of the concussion that knocked him out for a season.  The 49'ers gave him a 5 year contract at a rate we could have managed (barely - $9.2M last season), but the length is scary to me with the concussion issues.  Jensen received one of those "structured so his original team can't match it" deals and we may not have been able to do that.  That's the reason I honed in on Pouncey and Paradis as targets.

 

We could have handled the draft-trade-up situation in other ways to make that pick available and to keep Glenn.  Bottom line: Beane chose to prioritize maintaining this year's slate of draft picks over maintaining/upgrading our OL.

 

As far as Glenn, the GM has to look at the reason games have been missed. OLmen do get hurt, not just play a numbers game.  Glenn had a leg injury last season that required off-season surgery.  He's started 13 of 16 games.   That's hardly an "injury-prone unreliable weenie" in the pantheon of pro OLmen.  Example: Peters missed 9 games and the post-season last year.  He played 16 this year.  Earlier in his career he missed an entire season.  He came back and missed very few games the next 4 years. 

 

[Nihilarian]

Reading Castillo's story from his perspective it wasn't his idea to go into the season with the players on the roster. (lack of talent) Losing Glenn, Woods, Incognito did hurt the line play badly and I kinda doubt any O line coach could have done that much better this season. Considering the play calling, the rookie QBs.

 

I had the impression that Castillo had more input into the roster at the start of the season and from what he said, he didn't. Still the guy stinks with his overly complex run blocking schemes. 

The reason the guy is "hurt" by the firing is that he thought he was a fixture in Buffalo with McD and he sees the talent in Josh Allen. 

 

 

On another note in regards to Cordy Glenn. Beane was sitting at the #20 spot and knew he needed to move up into the top ten to draft one of the top four QBs. Trading away Glenn provided a big help in moving up to the #12 spot for a QB. The Bills hit the lottery with Josh Allen and played it perfectly to move up to draft him. Glenn, a guy who hadn't played a full season since 2015 and was injured again for the last three games this season. Clearly the Bills FO didn't think he was worth what he was being paid, like Sammy, Like Marcel. 

 

Shifting gears again... what about Crossman? 

[Hapless Bills Fan]

19 minutes ago, GG said:

That's basically how he came across.   

 

Piecing together bits of stories about Castillo is that he probably is a very good teacher of technique who can develop players, but is an awful coach to put in an effective blocking scheme for the line that works with the OC's design.   In a perfect world, he'd be demoted to Asst OL coach who works with players individually, and stays away from game designs.

 

There's that, but also stories that he's pretty much a "my way or the highway" kind of guy with the veterans - RI made some comments to the effect that Castillo was a coach who insisted on using the techniques he wanted (and actually, retaining Castillo may have been one factor in RI's trajectory - Eric Wood in his Cover1 interview said something that could be interpreted as Ritchie having been graded poorly in run blocking by Castillo and asked to take a pay cut for that reason.)

[Hapless Bills Fan]

13 minutes ago, Nihilarian said:

Reading Castillo's story from his perspective it wasn't his idea to go into the season with the players on the roster. (lack of talent) Losing Glenn, Woods, Incognito did hurt the line play badly and I kinda doubt any O line coach could have done that much better this season. Considering the play calling, the rookie QBs.

 

I don't know.  The last couple years of his tenure with the Ravens was marked by apparent confusion about assignments on the line, and a run game that disappeared.  I had the impression that Kubiak told Castillo what to do and really designed the schemes, and when Kubiak left things fell apart - big drop-off to the run game with the player personnel mostly intact.  While it's true that Castillo left Baltimore and was not fired, Harbaugh brought in Greg Roman as run game coordinator in 2017 and Castillo simultaneously announced he was moving to the Bills.  I believe Castillo was probably told "if you have another opportunity, take it" or else read the writing on the wall and called his pal McDermott for a job so he could say "you can't fire me I quit". 

 

I think GG may have it right - he's a good teacher of technique, and a poor designer of protection schemes.  I think he asks his OLmen to make decisions they can't make at game speed, and make physical moves they simply are not able to do, instead of understanding what his guys can and can't do and designing around it.

 

13 minutes ago, Nihilarian said:

I had the impression that Castillo had more input into the roster at the start of the season and from what he said, he didn't. Still the guy stinks with his overly complex run blocking schemes. 

 

To the latter, exactly.  To the former - this is where an experienced guy who is homies with the HC needs to "call the shot".  He needs to lay it out there.  I can't do what you're asking me to do without an upgrade.  This is who I need.  But from that interview, I have the strong impression details, facts, and executive function are not his strong suit.

 

13 minutes ago, Nihilarian said:

The reason the guy is "hurt" by the firing is that he thought he was a fixture in Buffalo with McD and he sees the talent in Josh Allen. 

 

From the article, one might gain the impression that one factor in his firing was shifting the blame for his poor OL performance to Josh Allen.

 

13 minutes ago, Nihilarian said:

On another note in regards to Cordy Glenn. Beane was sitting at the #20 spot and knew he needed to move up into the top ten to draft one of the top four QBs. Trading away Glenn provided a big help in moving up to the #12 spot for a QB.

 

That's absolutely true, but flip it around.  The reason Beane was able to move up 8 spots in the draft with Glenn, was because a true starting NFL LT simply does not become available very often, so he was valuable as a trade target.  Can we agree that Beane could have achieved the same thing in different ways?  He chose to do it this way, but it was a loss to the team and weakened the line, especially with Wood's retirement.

 

 

[SlimShady'sSpaceForce]

1 hour ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

Bye Felicia.

is that the cede word for being out in the Sin Bin?

 

[GG]

34 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

That's absolutely true, but flip it around.  The reason Beane was able to move up 8 spots in the draft with Glenn, was because a true starting NFL LT simply does not become available very often, so he was valuable as a trade target.  Can we agree that Beane could have achieved the same thing in different ways?  He chose to do it this way, but it was a loss to the team and weakened the line, especially with Wood's retirement.

 

 

 

We can go round and round on this, but it was clear from day 1 that Beane's priority was to land one of the top QBs and he was not going to get there without moving into Top 5-10.   That meant giving up a bunch of assets, that coupled with Wood's retirement and Richie's meltdowns put them in a short-term hole at OL.

 

McBeane's decision wasn't a question for 2018, but for the longer term state of the franchise. 

 

Are they better off with Josh Allen, and whatever the OL will look like going into this summer, or with Lamar Jackson and Cordy Glenn, plus what the rest of the OL would have looked like this summer?

[Ethan in Cleveland]

Love Castillo calling out Beane. The line issues are on Beane. He drafted a first round QB and surrounded him with one of the worst lines in the NFL. I don't know if Castillo can coach or not and neither does anyone on this board. But most of us can tell the talent level fell off greatly under Beane. He overpaid and spent money on Star, Ivory, and Murphy - all of which could have been user to keep Richie or find better players 

Now arguing against Castillo's comments is the fact Groy and Miller regressed terribly under his coaching and Ducasse was at best inconsistent and never played above average.

[hemma]

Makes sense to me if Daboll has a say in the OL coach.

Daboll tailors each weeks game plan to the opponent and it sounds to me like Castillo either wasn’t flexible enough to work with those marching orders or not gifted enough to keep pace.  End result was not good and he needed to go.

 

Need a guy that fits with Daboll, not the other way around.

[Gugny]

39 minutes ago, Ethan in Portland said:

Love Castillo calling out Beane. The line issues are on Beane. He drafted a first round QB and surrounded him with one of the worst lines in the NFL. I don't know if Castillo can coach or not and neither does anyone on this board. But most of us can tell the talent level fell off greatly under Beane. He overpaid and spent money on Star, Ivory, and Murphy - all of which could have been user to keep Richie or find better players 

Now arguing against Castillo's comments is the fact Groy and Miller regressed terribly under his coaching and Ducasse was at best inconsistent and never played above average.

 

I'm sure you're very upset, Zaida, but you and Juan will be just fine.

[Saint Doug]

Castillo should have kept his mouth shut.  That interview was bordering on unprofessional.

 

The very first line about him coming here to retire and the firing coming as a surprise was extremely telling.  He basically came to slide on through into retirement knowing McD wouldn't dare fire him.

 

And I don't really care about how many individual players he has developed in the past.  That's not the OL coaches job.  Last I checked, there are 5 guys playing the OL and each of them need to act as one unit.  They are supposed to communicate and compensate for each other's weaknesses.  A great coach helps this out in a big way by adjusting his scheme to his players abilities to make the unit larger than the sum of its parts.  Castillo did none of that and this is why he's now spouting sour grapes.

[hondo in seattle]

4 hours ago, GG said:

 

That's basically how he came across.   

 

Piecing together bits of stories about Castillo is that he probably is a very good teacher of technique who can develop players, but is an awful coach to put in an effective blocking scheme for the line that works with the OC's design.   In a perfect world, he'd be demoted to Asst OL coach who works with players individually, and stays away from game designs.

 

I was about to post something very similar.  Castillo was adamant that he knows how to develop players.  Both McD and Beane said the OL was out of sync.  They might all be telling accurate stories.  

 

 

 

 

[ndirish1978]

I'm starting to get annoyed that Crossman is still on the team.

[Mr. WEO]

Bills top 10 rushing offense this year....they ran for 33 yards less than last year, when they were ranked 6th.

 

What's that you say?  Much of those yards came from the mobile, athletic QB?  True, but I don't hear anyone knocking the #2 rushing offense in the NFL this season for the same thing..

[iinii]

3 hours ago, hemma said:

Makes sense to me if Daboll has a say in the OL coach.

Daboll tailors each weeks game plan to the opponent and it sounds to me like Castillo either wasn’t flexible enough to work with those marching orders or not gifted enough to keep pace.  End result was not good and he needed to go.

 

Need a guy that fits with Daboll, not the other way around.

Maybe the players weren’t gifted enough to execute Daboll’s plan either no matter who coached them. 

[JohnC]

6 hours ago, ScottLaw said:

He had a nagging foot injury that required surgery.

 

He played in 13 of 16 games this past year.

 

If I am GM I don't rush to trade a top tier LT when healthy. I would've rather traded a future unknown draft pick than an established very good NFL tackle on a team with several offensive line holes. But that's just me.? 

 

These guys felt they needed to rebuild pretty much the entire roster. Even riding themselves of good NFL players. They still haven't done a sufficient job replacing those players. 

 

 

I consider Cordy Glenn to be a good player. However, the trading of Glenn to Cincinnati to move up in that draft helped enable us to draft Josh Allen. I'll take that deal every time. As it stands the Bills have their franchise qb (something they haven't had in nearly a quarter of a century) and they enter this draft with a full complement of draft picks and a large amount of cap space to work with. There certainly was short-term pain with the loss of Cordy but in the long run it unquestionably worked out for us. 

 

You can come up with your mind-bending fanciful deals to get our qb. But making fanciful deals doesn't bring fruition to deals in the real world. There is no question that losing Glenn hurt us on the line this season. But because of that deal we were in position to draft Allen. Because of it this franchise is better off now and in the future. You may not be aware of it but in the real world when making deals you give up something worthwhile to get something even more worthwhile.  

[Hapless Bills Fan]

3 hours ago, GG said:

 

We can go round and round on this, but it was clear from day 1 that Beane's priority was to land one of the top QBs and he was not going to get there without moving into Top 5-10.   That meant giving up a bunch of assets, that coupled with Wood's retirement and Richie's meltdowns put them in a short-term hole at OL.

 

McBeane's decision wasn't a question for 2018, but for the longer term state of the franchise. 

 

Are they better off with Josh Allen, and whatever the OL will look like going into this summer, or with Lamar Jackson and Cordy Glenn, plus what the rest of the OL would have looked like this summer?

 

We agree on your first sentence.  Correct.   I'm just getting a bit irked by the "we had to trade Cordy Glenn or we couldn't have drafted Josh Allen" narrative.   No, we had to give trade-partner teams a substantial resource, but our starting LT was not the only choice.  Beane had the ammo to move up to #12 without Glenn.  It isn't a case of "Josh Allen and the current OL" vs "a different rookie and Cordy Glenn".  Beane chose to use Glenn vs. some of the other strategies he could have employed such as dipping into this year's draft picks.  Put another way, he valued next year's picks and his other picks above our 6 year starting LT, who seemed to be back to form this year after his surgery, and he did so when he knew we had already lost our starting center.

 

Whether that was a smart idea or not remains to be seen according to what talent he Beane comes from a team that, historically, has not put a huge value on the OL.  They've used 2-1st round picks on an OT in the last 18 years, one which gave them a decade of stability at LT, one of which washed out in 3 years due to injury.  They invested 3 2nd round picks and a 3rd round pick in the last decade.  In a stunning development this year, Newton had a career-high completion percentage and a career low number of sacks.  Apparently he did that with off-the-street signings at LT and LG, but 2nd and 3rd round picks on the rest of the line. 

 

So it can be done, but there has to be appropriate talent e v a l and a committment to keep bringing guys in until you land two.

 

 

30 minutes ago, iinii said:

Maybe the players weren’t gifted enough to execute Daboll’s plan either no matter who coached them. 

 

That's a really, really good question right now, isn't it?  Who was designing the OL scheme?

I saw plenty of plays especially early in the season where our guys were being asked to do things they apparently just couldn't do.  Less so as the season wore on but still there in the final game.

 

Is that Daboll, or is that Castillo?  I didn't do the same deep-dive into the run blocking last year.  I remember thinking there was an awful lot of confusion about assignments on the line, and of course our rush YPA fell off across the board, which might say Castillo had something to do with it.  But this year was worse.

 

Anyone else got some gouge?

[RochesterRob]

5 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

We agree on your first sentence.  Correct.   I'm just getting a bit irked by the "we had to trade Cordy Glenn or we couldn't have drafted Josh Allen" narrative.   No, we had to give trade-partner teams a substantial resource, but our starting LT was not the only choice.  Beane had the ammo to move up to #12 without Glenn.  It isn't a case of "Josh Allen and the current OL" vs "a different rookie and Cordy Glenn".  Beane chose to use Glenn vs. some of the other strategies he could have employed such as dipping into this year's draft picks.  Put another way, he valued next year's picks and his other picks above our 6 year starting LT, who seemed to be back to form this year after his surgery, and he did so when he knew we had already lost our starting center.

 

Whether that was a smart idea or not remains to be seen according to what talent he Beane comes from a team that, historically, has not put a huge value on the OL.  They've used 2-1st round picks on an OT in the last 18 years, one which gave them a decade of stability at LT, one of which washed out in 3 years due to injury.  They invested 3 2nd round picks and a 3rd round pick in the last decade.  In a stunning development this year, Newton had a career-high completion percentage and a career low number of sacks.  Apparently he did that with off-the-street signings at LT and LG, but 2nd and 3rd round picks on the rest of the line. 

 

So it can be done, but there has to be appropriate talent e v a l and a committment to keep bringing guys in until you land two.

 

 

 

That's a really, really good question right now, isn't it?  Who was designing the OL scheme?

I saw plenty of plays especially early in the season where our guys were being asked to do things they apparently just couldn't do.  Less so as the season wore on but still there in the final game.

 

Is that Daboll, or is that Castillo?  I didn't do the same deep-dive into the run blocking last year.  I remember thinking there was an awful lot of confusion about assignments on the line, and of course our rush YPA fell off across the board, which might say Castillo had something to do with it.  But this year was worse.

 

Anyone else got some gouge?

  I think that the bottom line with Glenn was even though he was not a top 5 LT he was going to be due a larger contract than what Beane wanted to hand out.  I still think that at least in secret Beane wanted to bottom out in 2017 so the cost to get Allen may not have included moving Glenn if that had happened but became water under the bridge leading up to the 2018 draft.  

[TheFunPolice]

man...

 

after reading the article I say hire the man back!

[Hapless Bills Fan]

2 hours ago, ndirish1978 said:

I'm starting to get annoyed that Crossman is still on the team.

 

Patience, Griselda

[thebandit27]

3 hours ago, Mr. WEO said:

Bills top 10 rushing offense this year....they ran for 33 yards less than last year, when they were ranked 6th.

 

What's that you say?  Much of those yards came from the mobile, athletic QB?  True, but I don't hear anyone knocking the #2 rushing offense in the NFL this season for the same thing..

 

Only 6 teams had a lower YPC than Buffalo's 4.2, and that's factoring in Allen's 631 yards on 89 carries (average of 7.1).

 

That's a pretty horrendous run game.

Edited January 3, 2019 by thebandit27

[BillyWhiteShows]

I feel kind of sorry for Juan, because he sounds pretty bummed he was fired.  He goes to great lengths to defend himself, but in doing so, I also don’t feel he’s being completely honest.  He claims he develops players,  but he really didn’t do anything of note this season.

 

Also Juan blamed some of the sack on Allen, which was the case early in the year but not toward the end.  

 

He also failed to address the immense struggles in the running game, which you know....is his main responsibility as run game Coordinator.  

 

He also didn’t mention the fact that the offensive line was worse in 2017 under his blocking scheme, than in 2016

 

Still I hope Castillo lands on his feet;

https://buffalonews.com/2019/01/02/buffalo-bills-juan-castillo-dion-dawkins-eric-wood-richie-incognito-nfl/

Edited January 3, 2019 by BillyWhiteShows

[RiotAct]

“I’m a PEOPLE PERSON, *****!!!”

[GoBills808]

Kinda hate to see a guy make that many excuses after getting let go. 

[Punching Bag]

On 1/2/2019 at 9:56 AM, MrEpsYtown said:

 

I agree with this, though I thought Sanjay Lal was pretty good. Robiskie knows what he is doing and has been excellent in career developing receivers. I don't know that a reciever coach can really help a guy catch better or be faster. There just isn't much talent in that room. 

 

 

Sanjay Lal was a great WR coach.  It was part of issue with Coach McD dumping all of the scouts and all of the coaches except ST Coordinator.